Public Opinion and the Abolition or Retention of the Death

19 Pages·2014·0.45 MB·English

by  Sara Sun Beale

Public Opinion and the Abolition or Retention of the Death Penalty
Why is the United States Different?

Sara Sun Beale*

What explains the difference between the United States and the many other countries that
have abolished capital punishment? Because the United States and many other nations that have
abolished the death penalty are democracies, there seems to be an obvious answer: abolition or
retention reflects the preferences of the electorate. According to this view, the U.S. electorate is
simply more punitive, and the question becomes explaining the difference in national attitudes.
There is some truth to this explanation. As I have argued elsewhere, the U.S. public generally
does favor punitive criminal justice policies.1 But that cannot be the whole story. Other nations
have abolished capital punishment despite widespread public support—in many cases, support of
more than 70 percent of the public at the time of abolition. In the United States, however, after
the Supreme Court imposed a de facto moratorium on capital punishment in the early 1970s,
strong public support led to its reintroduction in two-thirds of the states.

This paper explores the relationship between public opinion and the abolition or retention
of the death penalty, comparing the U.S. experience to that of other nations (with a particular
focus on Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada). Although the experience of each
country includes distinctive elements, several common themes emerge. In each country, political
elites led the abolition movement. The structure of the electoral process and the parliamentary
party system, moreover, allowed legislators and other public officials a degree of insulation from
popular opinion. The elites differed from their electorates in education, experience, and
knowledge of the issue. Because of these differences, support for capital punishment was much
lower among these elites than among the general public. In abolishing capital punishment, the
elites acted in accordance with their own views, rather than those of the median voter or the
general public. Some scholars have characterized this type of political behavior as the “elite
leadership hypothesis.” Additionally, international agreements and norms played a significant
role in Europe, making abolition difficult to reverse once enacted and helping to persuade other
nations to abolish capital punishment despite the existence of popular support. Finally, abolition
(whether de jure or de facto) has had a tendency over time to reduce public support for capital
punishment, thus diminishing popular pressure to reverse course.

* Charles L.B. Lowndes Professor, Duke Law School, Durham, North Carolina, USA. This paper was presented at
the International Society for Reform of Criminal Law’s conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, June 23, 2014.
The author would like to thank Hunter Bruton ’16 for his assistance in the research and writing of this paper.
1 See, e.g., Sara Sun Beale, The News Media’s Influence on Criminal Justice Policy: How Market-driven News
Promotes Punitiveness, 48 WM. & MARY L. REV. 397 (2006)(hereinafter Market-Driven News); and Sara Sun Beale,
What’s Law Got to Do With It: The Political, Social, Psychological, and other Non-Legal Factors Influencing the
Development of (Federal) Criminal Law, 1 BUFFALO CRIM. L. REV. 23 (1997).
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In contrast, the U.S. system has what one observer has called “hyper-democracy,”2 which
greatly reduces the likelihood that political elites will lead a movement toward the abolition of
capital punishment. Various features of the U.S. electoral process subject legislators and other
elected officials to significantly more political pressure than their international counterparts,
especially on hot-button issues like capital punishment. As a result, U.S. political elites have
much stronger incentives to act in accordance with public opinion. The federal structure has also
made abolition more difficult. The states have primary authority over the criminal law.
Although eighteen states have abolished the death penalty, support for the death penalty remains
very high in other states (especially in the South and Southwest). Additionally, the American
public and elected elites place little weight on international opinion, and the United States has
not joined international agreements that would require abolition. Paradoxically, however, the
Supreme Court has relied upon public opinion to overrule the results of the democratic process,
restricting (though not eliminating) capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and
Unusual Punishments Clause.

In light of the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to abolish capital punishment, opponents
of capital punishment have adopted a two-pronged strategy. First, they are bringing
constitutional challenges to the methods of execution. Second, they are focusing their political
energy on state legislatures, where their arguments for abolishing the death penalty include both
the risk of wrongful convictions and the high cost of capital punishment relative to life
imprisonment.

After a general comparison of key differences between the electoral structure of the
United States and abolitionist countries, this paper turns to brief case studies of the abolition
experience in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The final section then
contrasts these case studies with the U.S. experience.

I. Institutional Structures and Political Culture

A. The U.S. System: Hard Wired to Be Responsive to Public Opinion

In the United States a variety of institutional structures and closely related cultural
features make legislators and other political leaders highly responsive to public opinion and also
less likely to act on distinctive elite views. Short electoral cycles, term limits, and the primary
election system mean that even the most senior elected officials are continuously considering the
electoral implications of their actions, raising campaign contributions, and often deliberately
cultivating an anti-elite image.
At both the state and federal level, terms of service and electoral cycles are generally
short. In general, state laws provide for two-year terms for members in the lower state house,

2 ANTHONY KING, RUNNING SCARED: WHY POLITICIANS SPEND MORE TIME CAMPAIGN THAN GOVERNING 44-46
(1997).
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two- or four-year terms for the upper chamber, 3 and four-year terms for the governor. In
addition, fifteen states limit the number of years an elected member may serve in the state
legislature,4 and many states also have term limits for the governor. At the federal level,
members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms, the President serves a four-year
term, and Senators serve six-year terms.
Primary elections are used to select the Republican and Democratic candidate for each
electoral position, and even incumbents must run in the primary election. In state and federal
elections, even senior party leaders may lose their positions in the primary or general election if
they are perceived as out of touch with the voters in their district. For example, in June 2014, the
second-highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Eric
Cantor, was defeated in the primary election by a political newcomer who ran with the
endorsement of the Tea Party. The winning candidate criticized Cantor for being too willing to
compromise on immigration and support some form of amnesty for undocumented immigrants.
A conservative commentator said “that the primary results were ‘an absolute repudiation of
establishment politics’ and that Republican leaders should take note.”5 Indeed, the media
attributed Cantor’s loss, in part, to the close associations he maintained with political elites in
Washington at the expense of serving his own constituents.6 Commentators predicted that
Cantor’s defeat would push the Republican House leadership further to the right and embolden
the chamber’s most stubborn conservatives, who had long chafed at what they saw as “an
accommodating leadership.”7 Similar defeats have occurred in general elections: in 1994, House
Speaker Thomas Foley, the leader of the House Democrats, lost to a little-known Republican
during a general election that delivered control of Congress to the Republicans.8
The political culture in the United States generally rewards candidates “who are
conspicuously anti-elitist in their rhetoric and folksy in their self-presentation.”9 For example,
some voters supported George W. Bush because “he is a ‘guy’s guy.’… because he seems like
the kind of guy you could ‘sit down and have a beer with.’ You know, kick back with a couple of
ice cold Budweisers, talk about deer hunting, and then go out back and cut down some trees

3 States with four-year terms for members of the upper house (usually called the senate) include California, Florida,
Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia. States with two-year terms include Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, and North
Carolina. Illinois and Minnesota have more complex schemes in which members alternate between serving two-
and four- year terms.
4 NATIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE LEGISLATURES, TERM LIMITED STATES, http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-
legislatures/chart-of-term-limits-states.aspx (last visited, June 18, 2014).
5 Jonathan Martin, Eric Cantor Defeated by David Brat, Tea Party Challenger, in G.O.P. Primary Upset, N.Y.
TIMES, June 10, 2014 (quoting Laura Ingraham on Fox News).
6 Ashley Parker & Jonathan Martin, Population Shifts Turning All Politics National, N.Y. TIMES, June 16, 2014, at
A1.
7 Jonathan Weisman, Cantor Resigns Leadership Post in Effort to Smooth House Transition, N.Y. TIMES, June 11,
2014.
8 Martin, supra note 5.
9 Carol S. Steiker, Capital Punishment and American Exceptionalism, 81 OR. L. REV. 97, 115 (2002).
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together.”10 Seeking to capitalize on this phenomenon, candidates frequently dress in jeans or
other casual clothing at public appearances and in photographs for their campaign literature.
Carol Steiker argues that this institutional culture creates a strong tendency to defer to
public opinion rather than adopt a distinctly elite position:

…Americans have always tended toward a conception of government as appropriately
“provincial, amateur, authentic, spontaneous, candid, homogeneous, traditional, popular,
organic, rights-oriented, religious, voluntary, participatory, and rotational” as opposed to
“cosmopolitan, expert, authoritative, efficient, confidential, articulated in its parts,
progressive, elite, mechanical, duties-oriented, secular, regulatory, and delegative.” This
political culture creates a strong tendency to defer to clear majority sentiment, not merely
as a matter of political expediency, but also as a reflection of the role-conception of
elected officials.11

B. The Abolitionist States: Insulating Public Officials From Public Opinion

From a U.S. perspective, the idea that elected officials would buck public opinion on a major
issue like capital punishment is surprising, but that is exactly what occurred in virtually every
country that abolished the death penalty. Although each case study described below includes
unique features or historical events, common elements of the electoral systems promoted a
critical degree of independence from public opinion. Institutional and cultural factors also
fostered the development of politicians who understood their role to be using their expertise to
make decisions in the public interest, rather than simply representing the views of the electorate.
Once each country had abolished capital punishment, two other factors then made its
reintroduction less likely. First, several international treaties banned capital punishment, making
it much more difficult for signatory countries to change course while at the same time giving
politicians an excuse for maintaining the status quo. Second, abolition itself seemed to change
public opinion over time, reducing support for capital punishment.
In general, capital punishment fell under the jurisdiction of the national legislature in the
countries studied,12 and their electoral systems shielded individual legislators somewhat from
reprisals from the electorate for their votes on an issue such as capital punishment. In these
electoral systems, incumbent members typically held terms of office significantly longer than
their U.S. counterparts. Moreover, primary elections generally were not used in Europe or
Canada, and voters selected candidates in the general election on the basis of their party
affiliation, rather than voting for individuals. Most incumbents did not anticipate facing a
reelection campaign within two years or less, including a primary in which they may be

10 Thomas Negorski, Want a President You Can Have a Beer With?, ABC News, Sept. 23, 2008,
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2008/09/want-a-presiden/ (last visited June 16, 2014).
11 Steiker, supra note 9, at 116 (quoting GARY WILLS, A NECESSARY EVIL: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN DISTRUST OF
GOVERNMENT 17–18 (1999).
12 ANDREW HAMMEL, ENDING THE DEATH PENALTY IN EUROPE: THE EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE IN GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVE 169 (2010).
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challenged within their own party. Moreover, the fact that political parties chose their own
candidates for election rather than “throwing the question open to popular intervention” reduced
the chance that candidates would have to take populist stances on hotly contested issues like
capital punishment.13 It thus seems likely that, when deciding whether to abolish capital
punishment, legislators were less concerned about reelection than their U.S. counterparts.
These institutional features also promoted “a political culture in which political leaders are
viewed and view themselves as educated elites who have a duty to make decisions in light of
their expertise and thus, more often than in the United States, to lead the public rather than
follow it.”14 This is consistent with a trustee model of representation (associated with Edmund
Burke), rather than a delegate model.15 Given these institutional features, elites opposed to
capital punishment were more likely than their U.S. counterparts to openly support abolition,
and elite opinion became increasingly opposed to capital punishment. Politicians and other
influential elites accorded significant weight to research demonstrating that capital punishment
had no significant deterrent effect and that innocent persons had likely been executed.
Because policy concerning capital punishment was made at a national level, international
norms were more influential.16 And once capital punishment had been abolished, international
treaties made the reintroduction of capital punishment less likely. The Council of Europe played
a leading role in the battle for abolition, and all of the Council’s forty-seven member states have
now either abolished capital punishment or at least instituted a moratorium on executions. In
1983, the Council adopted a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights banning the
death penalty except in time of war, and in 2002, it abolished capital punishment in all
circumstances, even for acts committed in times of war.17 Abolition of the death penalty is now
a precondition for entry into the European Union.18 After abolition, these international treaties
serve both a legal and a political function. As a legal matter, they remove the issue from the
normal legislative agenda. As a political matter, politicians who want to maintain abolition and
satisfy the public can explain that international obligations effectively tie their hands.19 Finally,
these treaties provided an impetus for change in other countries (such as Turkey) that had not
already abolished the death penalty but wished to gain membership in the EU.
Finally, after a sufficient period, abolition has tended to delegitimize the death penalty
and reduce public support, thus diminishing the pressure for reintroduction.20 One study found
that, controlling for all other variables, citizens residing in a country with the death penalty are
almost three times as likely to support the death penalty as citizens living in a country without

13 Steiker, supra note 9, at 114–15 (2002).
14 Id. at 117.
15 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 83.
16 SANGMIN BAE, WHEN THE STATE NO LONGER KILLS: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NORMS AND ABOLITION OF
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, 120 (2007).
17 Renate Wohlwend, The Efforts of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in DEATH PENALTY
ABOLITION IN EUROPE, 55 (1999).
18 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 177–78.
19 Id. at 114–15.
20 Steven Stack, Public Opinion on the Death Penalty: Analysis of Individual-Level Data From 17 Nations, 14 INT’L
CRIM. JUST. REV. 69, 78 (2004).
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the death penalty.21 For instance, in France, support for the death penalty fell by 20 percent over
the course of approximately twenty-five years.22 Similarly, more than fifty years after abolition
of the death penalty in Germany, public support had fallen by more than 50 percent.23 This
change in behavior did not happen immediately, and it was likely due in part to the attitudes of
younger generations who grew up without capital punishment.24
II. Case Studies

This section provides brief case studies of abolition in Germany, the United Kingdom,
Canada, and France, which are discussed in chronological order.

A. Germany25

The German politicians and other elites who brought about the abolition of capital
punishment in 1949 were influenced by two major factors: scholarship demonstrating that capital
punishment did not deter crime and had a brutalizing effect on the public, and Germany’s
experience with state-sponsored violence during World War II.26 Abolition was accomplished
by adding Article 102 to the “Basic Law” (which functions as Germany’s constitution). At the
time of abolition, 77 percent of the public supported capital punishment,27 but German political
elites viewed the public as inexpert and uninterested in important scholarship demonstrating its
lack of deterrence.28 Some country-specific factors also played an important role. The recent
Nazi regime’s abuses of the death penalty served as a cautionary tale of the evils of state-
sponsored violence.29

Germany’s institutional structure and norms created the necessary environment for change by
providing a degree of insulation from public opinion. The structure of Germany’s representative
democracy buffered the political elites from constantly changing political opinion, and these
elites understood their role in Burkean terms.30 One politician went so far as to characterize the
essence of democracy as a “parliamentary aristocracy governed by well-trained elites.”31

21 Id. at 86.
22 ROGER HOOD & CAROLYN HOYLE, THE DEATH PENALTY: A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE 376 (2008).
23 Id.
24 Id.
25 This discussion is limited to developments in West Germany, which formed the basis for the German legal
structure upon reunification. East Germany officially abolished capital punishment in 1987. HAMMEL, supra note
12, at 82.
26 Id. at 66–68.
27 Id. at 66.
28 Id. at 84.
29 Id. at 83. Influential Nazi sympathizers were early supporters of abolition for reasons of their own. Hans
Christoph Seebohm, a “wealthy industrialist who had collaborated with the National Socialist regime” first proposed
the constitutional clause banning capital punishment Id. at 64. Seebohm was motivated by an ultimately futile effort
to halt executions of Nazi war criminals by Allied occupying powers. Scholars do not agree on the importance of
Seebohm’s proposal.
30 Id. at 83.
31Id. at 68.
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Although German politicians might not use this language today,32 it conveys an important insight
into the structure of European politics.

The German electoral process insulates members of the German federal parliament, the
Bundestag, from the electorate. Although some members of the Bundestag are directly elected,
others are selected by their political party, which places them on its list of candidates.33 The
majority party or governing coalition then selects the prime minister. This institutional structure
somewhat shields German representatives from popular opinion and puts primacy on a Burkean
trusteeship model of government where a politician’s action is not dictated simply by the
preference of a majority of his constituency.34 This structure, and the norms that underlie it,
allowed the key German political actors to act outside of public opinion and in accordance with
their own understanding of the negative effects of capital punishment.

Expert opinion was critical not only to the abolition of capital punishment 1949, but also
in preventing reinstatement. The German Criminal Law Commission “played an important role
in deferring and defusing the contentious issue of capital punishment.”35 In the late 1950s,
reinstatement of capital punishment gained political support.36 At that time, individual
lawmakers in Germany normally did not submit important legislation unless it had been worked
out in relevant government ministries and was subsequently voted on by the Federal Cabinet.37
In matters of criminal law, the Federal Cabinet largely deferred to the Commission, which was
composed of academics, judges, prosecutors, and other legal bureaucrats,38 who consistently
opposed the death penalty.39 This process allowed politicians to avoid reprisal from the public,
both before and after the Commission made decisions. Politicians could point to the
Commission’s ongoing deliberations as “an excuse to defer considering the question
themselves,” and after its vote “they could avoid taking personal responsibility for any position
on the death penalty by pointing to the Commission’s careful consideration of the issue and the
rejection of capital punishment.”40 Additionally, abolition’s constitutional status meant that even
strong majorities fell short of the required two-thirds vote to amend the Basic Law.41

Finally, Germany signed onto several international treaties codifying abolition, thus
further adding to the institutional barriers preventing the reintroduction of capital punishment.
Germany is a party to Protocols 6 and 13 of the Council of Europe, which ban capital

32 Id. at 70.
33 Id. at 69.
34 Id. at 69–70.
35 Id. at 72. The Commission was an advisory body formed by the federal government, not a parliamentary
committee.
36 Id.
37 Id.
38 Id. at 73.
39 Id. at 72.
40 Id.
41 Id. at 66.
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punishment.42 Further complicating any effort to reintroduce capital punishment, abolition of the
death penalty is also a precondition for entry to or membership in the European Union.43

B. United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, as in Germany, opposition to capital punishment became
increasingly prevalent among elites, and elite views carried the day in Parliament despite strong
public support for retention. Elites were influenced by research demonstrating a lack of any
deterrent effect,44 and there were recent cases in which it appeared that innocent men had been
executed for crimes they did not commit.45 When the Labour government took office in 1964,
there was widespread support for abolition among members of the House of Commons,
including Conservatives,46 and the new government gave its support—first tacit and later
explicit—to abolition legislation sponsored by a backbencher who was not part of party
leadership. Despite public opinion polls showing that 60 to 70 percent of the electorate favored
retention, Parliament imposed a five-year ban on capital punishment.47 Four years later,
Parliament abolished capital punishment for ordinary crimes.48 The Conservative party chose
not to make an issue of Labour policies that might have engaged “the more extreme prejudices of
the electorate,”49 and leaders of the three major parties voted individually for the bill making
abolition permanent.

The government did not publicly support the initial steps toward abolition, though it
provided increasingly strong support. The legislation that suspended the death penalty for five
years arose from a private member’s bill,50 and it was passed by a free vote.51 The issuing
member of the bill was Sydney Silverman, a backbencher at the time, who was a former Labour
party leader and longtime opponent of the death penalty.52

42 COUNCIL OF EUROPE,
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=187&CM=&DF=&CL=ENG (last visited May 27,
2014) (Protocol No. 6 and 13).
43 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 177–78; EUROPEAN UNION, http://eeas.europa.eu/human_rights/adp/index_en.htm,
(last visited May 27, 2014).
44 But see R.J. Buxton, Criminal Law Reform: England, 21 AM. J. COMP. L. 230, 240 (1973) (describing some
studies in the late 1960s that suggested that capital punishment might have a deterrent effect in England).
45 Id.
46 A noticeable increase in support for abolition occurred among the Conservative members of Parliament between
the time similar bills were defeated in the 1950s and the period roughly ten years later when the abolition legislation
was passed.
47 The “Murder Act” suspended the death penalty in England, Wales, and Scotland for a period of five years after its
passage by free vote. HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 110.
48 The death penalty was retained for some military offenses and crimes against the state (e.g. treason) until 1998,
but imposition of capital punishment has not taken place since 1964. BRIAN P. BLOCK & JOHN HOSTETTLER,
HANGING IN THE BALANCE: A HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN BRITAIN 70 (1997).
49 Buxton, supra note 44, at 240.
50 Under the “private member’s” bill system some days each year were set aside for bills proposed by individual
members (rather than those proposed by the government). Buxton supra note 44 at 232.
51 A free vote allows members allowed to vote their conscience, instead of by party line.
52 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 87, 96–109.
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Reliance on the private-member bill and a free vote allowed the Labour party to claim
that the abolition of the death penalty was not part of its agenda. The bill originated from a
backbencher and was voted on individually by members of Parliament.53 Behind the scenes,
however, the government provided significant support for the moratorium bill. It made
legislative time available and encouraged the Queen to express support for the bill.54 When she
later mentioned the bill in a speech, it was the first time she had referred to a private member’s
bill in her public comments.55

In 1969, the Labour party leadership decided to schedule the final vote on abolition a year
earlier than initially planned to reduce its proximity to the next general election.56 Although this
was again a free vote, party leaders led by example, with all three major party leaders in the
House of Commons voting for abolition.57 This leadership proved invaluable, as it heavily
influenced the House of Lords to pass the measure, and led to the permanent abolition of the
death penalty in 1969.58

The United Kingdom’s commitment to international treaties has erected significant
obstacles to any attempts to reintroduce capital punishment. In 2002, the United Kingdom
signed Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms, which prohibits capital punishment in all circumstances.59 Although public opinion
has continually been in favor of the death penalty, multiple attempts to reintroduce it have
failed.60

The United Kingdom’s abolition of the death penalty differs from the German story in
two important ways. First, abolition in the United Kingdom occurred in stages, with a
moratorium preceding final abolition, whereas the Germans abolished capital punishment in one
fell swoop. Second, the United Kingdom’s political elite made deft use of parliamentary
procedures that allowed them to distance themselves from the legislation. But, in both countries,
the story is still essentially one of political elites making decisions contrary to public opinion.
These strategies were seen as “elite measures, which were crafted and implemented in response
to advances in criminology and psychology, rather than [in reaction] to pressure from public
opinion.”61

C. Canada

Canada’s path to abolition included many of the same elements as those in other case
histories: strong support from committed elites whose views differed substantially from those of

53 Buxton, supra note 44, at 233.
54 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 110.
55 Id. at 108.
56 Id. at 112.
57 BLOCK & HOSTETTLER, supra note 48, at 266.
58 Id. at 267.
59 HAMMEL, supra note 12, at 114.
60 Id.
61 Id. at 111.
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the public, multiple moratoriums before final abolition, research finding that the moratoria did
not increase crime, and passage of the critical legislation by free votes. The Canadian Executive
kickstarted the process by using the clemency power to create a de facto moratorium and unlike
in Germany or the United Kingdom, the parliamentary debate was especially prolonged and
impassioned, focusing on moral objections to the state taking life. Although subsequent efforts
to reinstate capital punishment have come close to success in the past, treaty obligations now
commit Canada to abolition.

Executive action created a de facto moratorium from 1963–67. When the Liberal Party
came to power, the federal cabinet exercised the crown’s clemency power to commute every
capital case to life imprisonment.62 During this informal moratorium, support for the death
penalty in Parliament declined.63 After four years under the de facto moratorium, the Canadian
Solicitor General published a report concluding that suspension of the death penalty had not
increased the homicide rate. 64

The federal government then proposed legislation to impose a formal moratorium, as well
as other bills intended to make Canada’s sentencing laws more humane. Because the minority
government recognized that capital punishment was still considered legitimate by much of the
country and that Parliament itself was deeply divided, it proposed a compromise: an
experimental five-year moratorium excluding those convicted of mudering police officers and
other law enforcement officials.65 Under a new prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, this
moratorium was extended.66

In 1976, the staunchly abolitionist Solicitor General introduced Bill C-84 to abolish the
death penalty.67 Despite the fact that over 70 percent of the population supported capital
punishment,68 Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau gave the bill his “impassioned” support.69
He characterized capital punishment as “the emotive response of a ‘socially bankrupt’ society,”
not fit for a modern, rational state.70 Parliament remained deeply divided, and the debate was
highly charged and prolonged: 120 members spoke over a period of several months.71
Opponents questioned the legitimacy of the bill in light of the strong popular support for the
death penalty, raised the specter of terrorism and increases in violent crime, and tried to weaken
the bill with amendments. The bill’s fate was uncertain.

62 Andrew S. Thompson, Uneasy Abolitionists: Canada, the Death Penalty, and the Importance of International
Norms 1962-2005, 42 J. OF CANADIAN STUDIES 172, 174 (2008).
63 Id.
64 Marie Gottschalk, The Long Shadow of the Death Penalty, in IS THE DEATH PENALTY DYING? EUROPEAN AND
AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES 292, 314 (Austin Sarat & Jürgen Martschukat eds., 2011).
65 Thompson, supra note 62, at 174-75.
66 Id. at 175.
67 Id.
68 Id. at 176.
69 Id. at 175.
70 Id.
71 Id.
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